I'm here!

Yayyy I finally arrived in Manchester!

I left Winston yesterday morning for Charlotte, where I started off my travel in a true newbie manner when one of my bins at security was deemed "suspicious" and needed to be searched/ ran through the scanners again - aka I put my coat on top of my laptop.

My connector flight to JFK had about 1/4 its capacity, so I got to lay across 2 seats and was out before we even left the ground. This obviously didn't last long, seeing as I was quickly awaken to sit up-right, seat belt securely fastened. I did get a whopping 3 bags of peanuts and a full can of ginger ale though.

I had a 5 hour layover in JFK, where I ended up people watching most of the time. Good thing I'm not traveling to Asia, I'm sure they'd all hate me for staring.

Then, I finally boarded my flight to Manchester, and I don't know what yall have heard about budget costs on airplanes, but I was served a feast - literally though, a 5 course meal for dinner and a 2 course meal for breakfast. And I was able to watch the Karate Kid, a movie I've somehow managed to never see before today.

So after 8 hours of sitting in the same seat, 3 hours of on-and-off sleep, and 2 hours of desperately needing to pee (window seat = bad choice), I finally landed at 8:30am, which was a huge joke to my body, who was still on 3:30am time.

I got to my dorm by taxi, which was one of these new English models. So not only was it weird that they drive on the opposite side of the road, now with their taxis, the passenger is sitting where the trunk should be, while your luggage is on the floor in front of you.

So I got my keys, directions to my room, I'm all excited, and where do I end up? In the mailroom. No joke. Clearly I'm lost, but thankfully everyone here is proving very helpful, so I had a new set of directions in about 2 seconds. With new confidence, I worked my way into the right quad, where I helped another of my kind: a boy from Boston who had been trying to get in the wrong door for about 5 mins and couldn't figure out why his swipe card wouldn't work.

Then the most challenging part of journey begins... I realize my room is on the top floor, which wouldn't be an issue, but there's no elevator + me + 96 pounds of luggage. I'm sure you can all image the struggle for yourself. But upon arrival to my room, I quickly realize the struggle was worth it as my room is painted nothing but Carolina blue. And I'm already in love.

I've made friends with 2 girls on my hall - Nikki and Holly. However, they both have exams tomorrow so they've been pretty busy all day. Nikki informed me that most exams here are graded 2 points for a right answer and -1 for a wrong answer, definitely not looking forward to that.

I'm trying to adjust to the time change, even though half the time, I have no idea what time it is. It didn't help that my deliriousness from no-sleep was not allowing me to do a simple +5 math (the time difference). But I'll hopefully be back on schedule tomorrow and hope everyone back at home is doing well!!